Uncertainty of missing mires hopes of peace

Published: Thursday, December 23, 1999

KORENICA, Yugoslavia {AP} Six months after the end of the Kosovo conflict, not a single man between the ages of 16 and 60 from this ethnic Albanian village, which had a prewar population of 600, has been accounted for, residents and human rights activists say.

"We don't know if they are alive or dead," said Hateme Kameri, whose husband Rrustem was last seen being beaten by Serb paramilitaries when they raided the village April 27. "We still have hope that the men are in prisons."

The uncertainty about the men is hampering reconstruction and clouding hopes of reconciliation between ethnic Albanians and Serbs.

Serb authorities have told the International Committee of the Red Cross that they are holding about 1,700 ethnic Albanians men and women ranging in age from 13 to 73 arrested during the conflict and transported out of the province before NATO-led peacekeepers arrived in June.

Many Kosovo Albanians believe many more people are being held and that Yugoslavia is keeping them as "bargaining chips" for future negotiations on the status of Kosovo.

Serb paramilitary forces swept into Korenica, a village of some 70 houses, about a month after NATO began its 78-day air campaign to halt Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic's crackdown on ethnic Albanian separatists.

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe has documented 89 missing people in Korenica and 30 others from a village a few miles away.

All told, an estimated 10,000 ethnic Albanians died in the 18-month crackdown and 1.5 million were expelled from their homes, the State Department reported this month.

"People are very frustrated here," said Kosovare Kelmendi of the Humanitarian Law Center, a non-governmental group. "We are talking about people who have lost everything."